Tree Trimming
Trimming and pruning aren't the same job. Trimming shapes and maintaining what's already there; the skill is knowing how hard each species will take it.
What we trim
Hedges, shrubs and screens.
Trimming keeps a hedge or screen doing its job — privacy, shelter, boundary definition — without letting it get away on you. Left too long, most hedges become impossible to bring back without cutting into bare wood.
That's where species knowledge matters. Some plants regenerate happily from old wood: camellia, griselinia, escallonia and most broadleaf evergreens will forgive a hard cut. Most conifers will not. Cut a macrocarpa, leyland or juniper back past the green and it stays brown — permanently. Knowing which is which is the difference between a hedge that recovers and one you replace.
Formal hedges kept to a defined line and taper
Shelter belts reduced for height and wind loading
Screening shrubs shaped for privacy without losing density
Overgrown hedges brought back in stages, where the species allows it
Boundary trimming, with the neighbour conversation handled properly
Shelter belts
Long runs need machinery, not ladders.
A shelter belt is a different job from a garden hedge. The runs are long, the trees are often well over ten metres, and the work has to fit around stock, crops and the weather. Doing it off a ladder is neither safe nor realistic.
We run purpose-built shelter belt trimming attachments on our excavators. They cut a clean vertical face along the full length of a belt in a single pass — the line stays true, the cut face regrows evenly, and work that would take a hand crew days is finished in a fraction of the time.
Height and awkward access are covered by our own fleet of elevated work platforms. Between the machines and the EWPs we can work shelter belts and hedges at any scale, from a two-metre boundary hedge to a mature farm belt, and reach the places an excavator cannot.
Regular side-trimming is what keeps a belt doing its job. Left too long it shades out at the base, goes gappy and top-heavy, and loses the density that made it an effective windbreak in the first place.
A word on boundaries.
You're generally entitled to trim growth overhanging your property to the boundary line, but there are limits — you can't enter your neighbour's land without permission, you can't destabilise or kill the plant, and protected trees are a separate matter entirely. Where a job involves a boundary we'll tell you plainly what can and can't be done, and we'd always rather the neighbours were spoken to first.
Common Questions
Frequently asked
How often should a hedge be trimmed?
Most formal hedges want one or two cuts a year — typically late spring and again in late summer. Fast growers may need more. A shelter belt might only need attention every few years.
My hedge has got completely out of hand. Can it be saved?
Often, depending on species. Broadleaf evergreens will usually regenerate from old wood if the reduction is staged over a couple of seasons. Conifers generally won't shoot from brown wood, so a hard cut is permanent. We'll tell you honestly which situation you're in.
Can you trim a neighbour's tree that overhangs my property?
Usually to the boundary line, yes — but not by entering their property without permission, and not if the tree is protected or the work would destabilise it. We'll advise before starting.